The US government secretly financed a Twitter-style social network to stir
political unrest in Cuba, an investigation alleges

The Obama administration is accused of secretly financing a social network in Cuba to stir political unrest and undermine the country's communist government.

An Associated Press investigation found the programme allegedly evaded Cuba's Internet restrictions by creating a text-messaging service that could be used to organize political demonstrations. It drew in tens of thousands of subscribers who were unaware it was backed by the U.S. government.

Documents and interviews show the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) apparently went to extensive lengths to conceal its involvement in a so-called 'Cuban Twitter'. They set up front companies overseas and routed money through a Cayman Islands bank to hide the money trail.

The project, dubbed ZunZuneo, slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet, was launched shortly after American contractor Alan Gross was arrested in Cuba for undertaking covert work to expand Internet access in 2009.

It is unclear whether the alleged scheme was legal under U.S. law, which requires written authorisation of covert action by the president and congressional notification. Officials at USAID declined to confirm who had approved the programme, or whether the White House was aware of it. The Cuban government declined a request for comment.

USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington's ties to the project, according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP. They set up front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail, and recruited CEOs without telling them they would be working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded project.

USAID said in a statement that it is "proud of its work in Cuba to provide basic humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to help information flow more freely to the Cuban people," whom it said "have lived under an authoritarian regime" for 50 years. The agency said its work was found to be "consistent with U.S. law."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Appropriations Committee's State Department and foreign operations subcommittee, said the ZunZuneo revelations were "troubling".

"There is the risk to young, unsuspecting Cuban cellphone users who had no idea this was a U.S. government-funded activity," he said. "There is the clandestine nature of the program that was not disclosed to the appropriations subcommittee with oversight responsibility.

"There is also the fact that it was apparently activated shortly after Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who was sent to Cuba to help provide citizens access to the Internet, was arrested."